The Last Sunday of the Church Year – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: Ezra 1:1-7
In Christ Jesus, whose kingdom is not of this world and whose kingdom is not coming with signs that can be observed (Joh. 18:36, Luk. 17:20), but who will take us into His heavenly kingdom when He returns in glory, dear fellow redeemed:
When a team is preparing for a big rivalry game, the anticipation builds as the game gets closer. The players feel a mixture of nervousness and excitement as they imagine how the contest could play out. The same goes for their fans. Some get there long before the game begins, before the players have taken the field. Then more and more arrive, the noise level increases, the players warm up, everyone waits in tension and hope. Maybe today is the day! Today is a time for greatness! Today we go home victorious!
If you are a sports fan, you can appreciate that feeling of anticipation. But there are many other things that “stir us up,” that rouse us from normal, everyday life: things like our wedding day, the birth of a child, the first day at a new school or a new job, an upcoming birthday or family celebration, the approach of Christmas. These are special days, made even more special by the need to wait for them. The things that give us instant gratification are typically not the things we appreciate the most. It is the things we look forward to and dream about, the things that require patience, no matter how hard it is to wait.
When Jerusalem was destroyed and its people were either killed or taken as slaves to Babylon, it was difficult for them to believe Jeremiah’s prophecy that the LORD would bring His people back again. But this is what the LORD promised: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope” (Jer. 29:10-11).
It was difficult to believe it would actually happen while the people were exiled in a faraway land. Psalm 137 expresses their deep sorrow: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres. For there our captors required of us songs, and our tormentors, mirth, saying, ‘Sing us one of the songs of Zion!’ How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land?” (vv. 1-4).
One of our hymns of the month expresses this same sorrow as we live as exiles in this fallen world: “And now we fight the battle, / But then shall wear the crown / Of full and everlasting / And passionless renown; / And now we watch and struggle, / And now we live in hope, / And Zion in her anguish / With Babylon must cope” (ELH #543, v. 4). Zion is the Christian Church, and Babylon is the sinful world. We don’t fit in with the world. We meet disapproval for our beliefs and sometimes persecution. In some parts of the world, Christians are marked for death simply because they acknowledge Jesus as Savior and Lord.
The LORD has promised an end to these trials, just as He promised an end to the exile of His people in Babylon. But why did He let His people be conquered and taken away in the first place? We heard the reason last week: “they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the LORD rose against his people, until there was no remedy” (2Chr. 36:16). The LORD had not acted impulsively or impatiently. He had not wronged His people. He sent them many prophets. They were given many chances to repent. But they chose other gods, false gods. They chose to disobey the God who created them and chose them as His own.
We face the same temptations now, temptations to pursue the pleasures and riches of the world, temptations to follow a self-made spirituality and ignore the called servants of God, temptations to despise His holy Word by choosing to think, speak, and live in ways that we know He condemns. So is it any surprise when God sends us “wake-up calls”? When we experience pain and trouble because of our sinful choices? When He takes away the things we trusted in that cannot save us?
When these sorrows and trials come, we might ask God why He is letting them happen to us. “Have You forsaken me, God? Where are You?” Those questions have us focused in the right direction—not on the empty things of the world, but on God who alone can rescue and save. In our troubles and difficulties, He does not want to push us away from Him but wants to draw us closer. Everything He does is out of love for us. Hebrews 12:6-7 says, “‘For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.’ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”
Once He has humbled you and led you to confess your sins against Him, then the LORD stirs up something inside you through the Word of His grace. He declares to you that the sins that separated you from Him and were keeping you from His blessings—all those sins are forgiven. By forgiving your sins, He is telling you that He will not remember them; He will not bring them up again in the future; He will not hold them against you.
That is what forgiveness means: letting go of the right or the desire to punish someone for his wrongs. It is the cancellation of a debt; the removal of sin’s guilt and condemnation (ELS Catechism definition). This would not be possible if Jesus had not paid the penalty for your sins and taken the punishment you deserved. The shedding of His holy blood is the reason why God now freely forgives you, why He operates as though the wrong you did was never done in the first place. The psalmist says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us” (Psa. 103:12).
When the LORD forgives our sins, He stirs up in us the resolve to set aside our sinful habits and check our sinful impulses. He stirs up in us the desire to live the baptismal life, walking in newness of life, clothed in His righteousness, and making His glory known. He stirs up in us the hope that one day we will be free of this sinful flesh and our life in this sinful world and will join Him in the place of no sin—His heavenly, eternal kingdom.
“And now we watch and struggle, / And now we live in hope.” Jeremiah said seventy years of waiting. Long before this prophecy, Isaiah gave the name of the people’s deliverer: Cyrus. Isaiah named him some two hundred years before he made his decree (Isa. 44:28, 45:1). As far as we know, Cyrus was not a believer in the LORD’s promise of salvation. But “the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom and also put it in writing.”
His decree was that the house of God should be rebuilt in Jerusalem, that His people were free to return to that land, and that all their neighbors should assist in giving them what they needed for their journey and their work. Where else could this come from than the LORD? He also stirred up the spirits of leading Jews to leave their homes of seventy years in Babylon and return to Mount Zion to rebuild the temple and the city. As they prepared to go, they were supplied with all sorts of silver, gold, and costly goods, just like the Egyptians had done so many years before when the Israelite slaves marched out of Egypt.
The return to the Promised Land was not a foolish dream. The LORD had not lied through His prophets. What He says comes to pass. So it is no lie when our Bridegroom tells us He is coming back to take us to the heavenly Zion, to His eternal wedding feast. While we are here, He wants us to keep our lamp of faith burning with the oil He supplies in His Word and Sacraments. He wants us to stay ready for His return (Matthew 25:1-13).
But like all ten virgins in today’s Holy Gospel, we struggle against spiritual drowsiness and sleep. We need the Spirit-filled, life-giving Word of God to stir us up. His Word is what keeps us awake and sober, as today’s Epistle lesson says (1 Thessalonians 5:1-11). The Holy Spirit stirs up our spirits, so that our hearts and minds are set not on the passing things of this world, but on the beautiful, joyful, eternal things to come. These things are as sure as our Lord’s promises. He will come again and take us to His kingdom.
Jesus, our heavenly Cyrus, has made His decree: It is time to prepare to enter the eternal holy city and temple. The cry has gone out, “Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!” The anticipation is building. He’ll be here soon. Our Savior is coming! Could today be the day, the day we go home victorious? In nervousness and excitement, in tension and hope, we worship our LORD, we watch for Him, and we wait.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture of the Judean mountains in Israel)
The Festival of the Reformation – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 2 Chronicles 29:12-19
In Christ Jesus, who cleanses and consecrates His holy Church of all believers, so we are ready to carry out His work in His name to His glory, dear fellow redeemed:
Imagine if a church building was taken over by Satanists and defiled in every way, or it was turned into an establishment that catered to every vice that people were willing to pay for. What would need to be done to turn the building back into a Christian church? Every godless image and item would be need to thrown out. The interior would need to be scrubbed from top to bottom. None of the uncleanness that was there before could be left—not even a hint of it—if it was to serve as the place of God’s holy presence once again.
This is the task the Levites and priests faced when King Hezekiah opened up the temple doors that his wicked father had shut up. Hezekiah’s father had followed the pagan practices of the nations around Judah. He had built altars to false gods all over Jerusalem and in the high places surrounding it. He had sacrificed some of his sons as burnt offerings. He took the holy vessels from the temple of God and cut them in pieces. He put a stop to the daily sacrifices in the temple which God had commanded (2Chr. 28).
The first thing Hezekiah did when he began to reign was to call the priests and Levites together to cleanse the temple of the filth that had been brought into it. They started by consecrating themselves—preparing themselves for holy work—as the Law of God required. This is how every effort in the Church should begin, by a recognition of our own sinfulness. The priests and Levites acknowledged their past unfaithfulness, and they committed to doing what God had commanded.
Piece by piece, item by item, inch by inch, they cleansed the house of the LORD. They started with the innermost parts of the temple. The seven Levitical families worked seven days plus one until they reached the vestibule or porch of the temple. Then they worked another seven days plus one to finish the work of consecration.
The number seven is in view because that is the number for perfection or completeness. The use of seven indicates that the temple of the LORD was completely cleansed by the priests and Levites and prepared for His service. This is also why seven bulls, seven rams, seven lambs, and seven male goats were brought for a sin offering when the temple was ready. This was an offering for all the sins of all the Israelites (2Chr. 29:24).
But how could the people turn so quickly from their wicked ways? How could they so eagerly follow a bad king one day and a good king the next? The change was not exactly so immediate and all-inclusive. Some whose consciences had troubled them under the previous king were now ready to do what was right under King Hezekiah. Others might have preferred the former practices and pleasures that the worship of false gods offered.
But Hezekiah and the priests and Levites did not do their work arbitrarily. The religious system they sought to re-establish and follow was not a spirituality of their own making. They were doing what God had told His people to do in His Word, in the Holy Scriptures recorded by the prophets. This is what they would follow because this was the very voice of God which He had spoken and given for their life and salvation.
Martin Luther and the other reformers in the sixteenth century similarly had to deal with defilement in the house of God, in His holy Church. Over time, the Roman Catholic Church had adopted unbiblical teachings and practices that were leading the people away from the truth. The Roman Church taught that indulgences could be purchased to free souls from purgatory, that the human will is able to produce good works which make satisfaction for sin, that Mary and the saints could be invoked for spiritual help, and many other things that are not taught in the Bible.
Just as the priests and Levites threw some things out of the temple, but consecrated and kept others, so the Reformers did not throw out everything that “looked Catholic.” They kept everything that was faithful to the Word of God, such as the Baptism of infants, the real presence of Jesus in the Supper, the order of the historic liturgy, vestments, altars, pulpits, crucifixes, candles. This is why Roman Catholics often find that our buildings and services seem familiar, because we have retained these historic and beneficial Christian things.
The focus of the priests and Levites, just like the focus of the Lutheran Reformers, was to hold fast to the pure Word of God. Every teaching, every practice, every effort in the Church had to be examined in the light of God’s Word and to be cast out if it did not agree with God’s Word. They would humbly listen to His teaching, follow His guidance, and proclaim His truth.
This is still our focus today. We have been talking over the last couple weeks about how different we are than other Lutherans who do not believe the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Recently in the news we are hearing about a division in the Anglican Church between those who deny the clear Word of God and those who want to follow it. In fact, every major Christian church body has fractured over those who want to stand on the Scriptures as written and those who want to make accommodations for our culture and society.
The Christian Church on earth will always be tempted to water down its teachings in order to fit better with the world. We are personally tempted when we think to ourselves how many more people we could reach if we just loosened up on this teaching or that practice, such as the clear meaning of the Ten Commandments, the roles of men and women, and who can receive Holy Communion. But if we step off the foundation of the Bible, from what our Lord has taught us in His Word, we will find there is no firm ground to stand on.
Faithfulness here (in the church) has to start with faithfulness here (in the heart). If each of us individually cannot articulate and defend the faith we have, how can we make sure that the teachings of our church will stay pure? Like the priests and Levites working their way through the polluted temple starting with its inner parts, we need to closely examine our hearts to identify what is unclean and needs to be cast out.
So we could examine ourselves with questions like these: What lies have I been telling myself or others that need to be acknowledged? What sins have I committed with my eyes, my ears, or my mouth that need to be stopped? What anger, hatred, and bitterness have I let grow in my heart toward another person? What jealousy, judgment, or unkindness do I find when I think about certain people? What sins have I tried to bury or ignore that are eating me up? How have I failed to honor God in my daily pursuits and efforts?
The Levites carried the unclean items from the temple out to the brook Kidron. We bring all our sins to the waters of Holy Baptism. It was at Baptism that we were first cleansed of our sins and made members of Christ’s holy Church. We return to that Baptism and receive cleansing again when we confess our sins and receive forgiveness through Christ’s Word of absolution, like we do at the beginning of the divine service.
Every time you hear your Savior’s comforting words of forgiveness, He is telling you that He is not angry with you for your sins. He joined you to Him in Baptism, so that you would be covered in His righteousness and consecrated, or set apart, to do His holy work. No matter how the temple of your body has been defiled in the past from your sins, He prepares it for fruitful work now.
After listing all sorts of serious sins that the Christians in Corinth had committed, St. Paul wrote, “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1Co. 6:11). He wrote to them again in his second letter, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2Co. 5:17).
You are washed in the waters of Holy Baptism—cleansed of your sins. In Christ, you are a new creation, which means your sinful past is history. But then why do we find it so challenging to do what is right? It is because the old Adam clings to us and wants to re-conquer our hearts. Our sin is the reason that the Church on earth is always struggling—in Hezekiah’s time, in Luther’s time, and in our time. We can’t take for granted that we will always be faithful, because we are no less sinful and weak than anyone else.
But you know where Christ’s power and strength for faithfulness is found. It is found in His pure Word and Sacraments. The preaching and studying of His Word and the administration of His Sacraments may seem like weak fortifications for the attacks of the devil, the world, and your own flesh. But nothing could be more effective against these attacks. Jesus says: “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life,” and, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (Joh. 6:33, 8:31-32).
Christ Cleanses the Church by His Pure Word. Through His Word, He reveals the uncleanness in our hearts and the errors of our ways. Through His Word, He declares the forgiveness and righteousness we have by faith in Him. Through His Word, He changes us, prepares us, and equips us for the good work He has given us to do as members of His holy Church. So we joyfully confess and sing the words of Luther’s hymn:
Stood we alone in our own might,
Our striving would be losing;
For us the one true Man doth fight,
The Man of God’s own choosing.
Who is this chosen One?
’Tis Jesus Christ, the Son,
The Lord of hosts, ’tis He
Who wins the victory
In ev’ry field of battle. (ELH #251, v. 2)
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from Wittenberg altarpiece painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Younger, 1547)
The Eighth Sunday after Trinity – Pr. Faugstad sermon
Text: 1 Kings 12:26-33
In Christ Jesus, who faithfully carried out His work of redeeming love for the salvation of our weak and sinful hearts, dear fellow redeemed:
For seven years, King Solomon built a beautiful temple in Jerusalem. Its dimensions were estimated to be 90 feet in length, 30 feet in width, and 45 feet in height. The walls and floors were lined with boards of cedar and cypress. Intricate carvings were made in the wood, and then the wood was overlaid with pure gold. The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place were built within the temple. The Most Holy Place is where the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD was kept. When the Ark was brought into the temple, the LORD came in a cloud, and His glory filled the temple (1Ki. 8:10-11).
The LORD was pleased with Solomon’s faithful work. He told Solomon that if he would walk “with integrity of heart and uprightness” as David had and would follow His Commandments, then Solomon’s throne would be established over Israel forever (1Ki. 9:4-5). But He warned that if Solomon turned aside from following Him and followed other gods, his great kingdom would crumble, and even the temple would become a heap of ruins.
As the chronicle of Solomon’s life continues, we learn that he took for himself 700 wives and 300 concubines. When he was old, these wives who came from foreign lands turned his heart away from the LORD to serve their gods. Solomon built altars to their gods and joined his wives in worshipping them. So the LORD raised up adversaries against Solomon, one of whom was a man named Jeroboam. This is the Jeroboam we hear about in today’s reading.
When Solomon died, his son Rehoboam began to reign in his place. And when the people from the northern tribes of Israel asked Rehoboam to be more merciful than his father Solomon had been, Rehoboam listened to bad advice and said that he would be much harsher than his father had been. So the people in the northern tribes of Israel rebelled against Rehoboam and decided to make Jeroboam their king. This all happened according to God’s will because of Solomon’s unfaithfulness. The LORD told Jeroboam that if he would be faithful to Him, his kingdom would be firmly established.
But Jeroboam did not remain faithful, as we learn about today. He was jealous to keep his power. He worried that if the Israelites went to the temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices to the LORD, then Rehoboam might win them back. So he made a plan. He would set up new places of worship where the people could go, so they wouldn’t go to Jerusalem. He set up two calves of gold, one in Bethel and the other in Dan. And where have we heard about golden calves before? That’s the idol the Israelites made right after the LORD led them out of their slavery in Egypt.
What the Israelites said then is basically what Jeroboam said now about the golden calves, “Behold your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Jeroboam’s idolatrous plan “became a sin,” as our reading says. He promoted this idolatry by making temples on high places, appointing priests not from the Levites, and establishing a feast day “in the month that he had devised from his own heart.” This grand idea started in his heart and was guided all along the way by his heart. He would have fit right in in our culture today.
We often hear that we can’t go wrong if we just follow our heart. Following your heart is seen as the path to happiness. Ignoring what your heart tells you could lead to a lifetime of regret and unhappiness. But why do people think the heart is such a reliable guide? Has anyone’s heart ever led him wrong? Listen to how the heart is described in the time before the Flood: “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen. 6:5). Through the prophet Jeremiah, the LORD said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick” (17:9). Then we have Jesus’ own words about the heart: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mat. 15:19).
Clearly the heart can steer us wrong. It is not a trustworthy guide. It can and often has led us astray. So how can we know if the feelings and thoughts of our heart are good and beneficial, or if they are leading us in the wrong direction? We know this by comparing what we are thinking and feeling with what God tells us in his holy Law.
So if my heart is telling me to disobey my parents and do things they tell me I shouldn’t, then my heart is contradicting the Fourth Commandment. If my heart tells me to pursue a sexual relationship outside the blessed boundaries of marriage, then my heart is going against the Sixth Commandment. If my heart tells me to attack someone else’s reputation in an attempt to elevate myself, then my heart is violating the Eighth Commandment.
The theme of today’s service is “Beware of False Prophets.” The false prophet to be most aware of is the false prophet that lives within us, within our heart. It is the old Adam that disobeys God, and that looks with desire at what God says is sin. There are two ways that the old Adam in coordination with the devil works: One is outright opposing what God says in His Word; the other is twisting what God says in His Word.
The first is when we are tempted to reject or ignore what God says because it doesn’t agree with the way we think. We don’t want to be outsiders in the world; we want to fit in. Maybe we want to accommodate our own sin or the sin of someone else, so we write off something in the Bible as being outdated or unclear or unhelpful for the mission of the church. The other way the old Adam operates is to subtly change the Word of God, soften it, explain away something that challenges us. Maybe we excuse someone’s sin and even lend our support to it because, after all, God tells us to love our neighbor, and we interpret love as never questioning someone’s choices.
Jeroboam directly contradicted the Holy Scriptures in everything he did and said to keep the Israelites away from Jerusalem. How does Jesus tell us in today’s Holy Gospel that we will recognize false prophets? He says we will “recognize them by their fruits” (Mat. 7:16), especially by what they say. Do we say things that contradict what the Bible says? Then that is the old Adam talking and not our new man of faith.
Jesus says that those who will enter the kingdom of heaven are those who by faith do the will of His Father who is in heaven. Doing the Father’s will is believing and following exactly what He says in His Word. This is how we “hallow His name,” as we say in the Lord’s Prayer. We hallow God’s name by teaching His Word in its truth and purity and by living holy lives according to it as His dear children (Luther’s Explanation to the First Petition).
There is a reason we have to pray for this. A pure life lived according to God’s Word doesn’t come naturally to us. We struggle to hold to His Word. We struggle to do what is right. Our life is full of failures to “fear, love, and trust in God above all things” (Luther’s Explanation to the First Commandment). We have at times followed the god of self-satisfaction. We have followed the god of pride and personal glory. We have followed the god of popularity and acceptance by the world.
We pray along with King David, “Create in me a clean heart, O God” (Psa. 51:10), because we know how unclean our heart has been. David wrote these words after following his heart and succumbing to terrible sins. God forgave him those sins, just as He forgives you your sins. He knows how evil and desperately sick your heart is by nature. If it were good or even neutral, He would not have needed to send His Son to die on the cross in your place.
But He did send His Son. The coming of His Son in the flesh was necessary for you and every sinner. We needed Him to apply His perfectly pure heart to keeping the Law of God in our place, so we would be credited with His perfect love toward God and neighbor. We needed Him to hallow God’s name in every way by obeying His Father’s will and offering up His holy life for you and me.
You can’t find what you need for life and salvation in your own heart with all its wayward passions and desires. But you can find what you need in Jesus’ heart. He makes His love known to you by inviting you to partake of His means of grace, to hear His Word of truth and salvation and to feast on His holy body and blood.
What He gives you here through His Word and Sacraments may not seem as exciting or impressive as what is going on with the golden calves of prosperity, power, and pleasure that are worshipped by the world. But just as the LORD promised to be present in the Most Holy Place of the temple, so He has promised to be present here in this most holy place, where He comes to bless you with His gifts.
This is where He expresses His faithfulness to you, and where He strengthens your faithfulness to Him. This is where He cleanses your heart and pours His love into it, so it is ready for fruitful service to the people around you. This is the good plan and purpose for your life that the LORD formed in His own heart and revealed to you in His holy Word. By hearing and trusting His Word, you are submitting your heart to His will. And when you follow His heart, you will ever have His joy, His life, and His peace.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, forevermore. Amen.
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(picture from “The Golden Calf” by James Tissot, 1836-1902)
Midweek Lent 1 – Pr. Faugstad homily
Text: St. Matthew 24:1-2
In Christ Jesus, the stone rejected by the builders, which has become the cornerstone of God’s holy house, dear fellow redeemed:
If someone told you that all the buildings in Cresco or New Hampton were going to be dismantled down to their foundations, you would have a hard time believing it. Even if you had no reason to doubt the source of the information, it would be hard to imagine what chain of events would bring about this complete destruction.
The disciples of Jesus were likewise shocked when Jesus told them that the magnificent temple in Jerusalem would be destroyed. Some estimate that the stones of the temple were as large as 37 feet long, 18 feet wide, and 12 feet high (The Lutheran Study Bible, CPH, note for Mark 13:1). The stones were decorated with gold which dazzled in the sunlight. “What wonderful stones and what wonderful buildings!” said the disciples (Mar. 13:1).
The original and most beautiful temple in Jerusalem was completed by King Solomon in the mid-900s B. C. This stood until around 587 when the Babylonians destroyed it and took the people of Judah into captivity. About seventy years later, a less ornate temple was built again after the Jews were allowed to return and rebuild Jerusalem. This temple remained until King Herod enhanced and expanded it shortly before the birth of Christ.
This temple was a source of great national pride. It gave the Jews the assurance that God must be pleased with them. After all, they made the daily sacrifices that God commanded. They prayed in the temple. They kept the festivals and feasts. But just before today’s reading, Jesus stood up in the temple and said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! See, your house is left to you desolate” (Mat. 23:37-38).
He followed this up by telling His disciples privately, “You see all these [buildings], do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” The temple would be utterly destroyed, and not just the temple, but the entire city of Jerusalem. This happened about forty years later in the year A. D. 70, when the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem after an extended siege and laid waste to the city.
The well-fortified city walls did not save the people. The shining temple in the center of the city did not save them. God wanted to save them, but they rejected the salvation He sent. On His way to Jerusalem at the beginning of Holy Week, Jesus wept over the city, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luk. 19:42). At that time also, He had predicted the destruction of the city, that one stone would not be left upon another. Why would this happen? “Because,” said Jesus, “you did not know the time of your visitation” (v. 44). So many of the people had rejected their Lord of life.
The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple serve as a warning for us that the things which may seem most solid and immovable on this earth also have an expiration date. The powerful countries, officials, and businesses will pass away. The great cities will fall. Our possessions, no matter how valuable; our bank accounts, no matter how full; our homes, no matter how well-built, will one day fall apart, be emptied, and come crashing down.
But there is a deeper lesson here. The people in Jerusalem were trusting in their work for God instead of His work for them. This can happen to us as well. We can quietly compare ourselves with others and feel prideful, saying with the boastful Pharisee, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luk. 18:11). Or we can think that our attendance at church and our regular offerings are pleasing to Him, even if our heart is not really in it.
But God does not want empty actions. He wants repentance and faith. David put it this way in his penitential psalm: “For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Psa. 51:16-17). That is why Jesus wept over the city—He saw very little repentance and faith among His people who had the Holy Scriptures. They had the truth of God and rejected it.
None of the impressive and beautiful things created by our hands can measure up to the glory of God. None of our works, none of our achievements, none of our abilities can secure for us the favor of our Lord. Only Jesus could do this. Only He could lay the foundation and set the cornerstone for a holy temple that would never fall. Only He could establish a spiritual house for the offering of “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1Pe. 2:5).
Our “spiritual sacrifices,” our prayers, our good works, our acts of Christian love, are “acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” They are acceptable to God because we do them in faith. We know we cannot earn His favor by what we do. We know that we already have favor with Him because of what Jesus did for us. Jesus is “the stone that the builders rejected [which] has become the cornerstone” (Psa. 118:22). He is the Rock on which the Church is built. We stand firmly on Him.
Jesus could not be thrown down. He could not be destroyed. He is the Son of God, through whom all things were created. He is the Lord of life. After the first time that Jesus cleared the temple of all who bought and sold in it, the Jewish leaders asked Him, “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” They thought He was talking about the temple building itself and ridiculed Him. But Jesus was speaking about His body (Joh. 2:18-21). He would soon die on the cross for all sin, and then He would rise again on the third day. That temple could not be destroyed.
The temple building in Jerusalem was impressive, but it was nothing but an empty structure, a desolate house, without the Lord’s gracious presence. The same is true for our churches. If we no longer focus on Jesus, if we no longer receive His gifts through the Word and Sacraments with repentance and faith, then we have rendered these beautiful structures meaningless. If our confidence as Christians is in a building, then we are no different than the Jews in Jesus’ day who trusted a building more than the Son of God incarnate.
We know that everything we see on earth will one day be gone. Even our bodies will fail and return to dust. But as St. Paul writes, “we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2Co. 5:1). We have a home with God above, a temple that will never be destroyed. By His grace, we will enter His holy household, where we will live in perfect peace and joy for all eternity. Thanks be to God! Amen.
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(picture from “Siege and Destruction of Jerusalem” by David Roberts, 1850)